And so it begins

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Andrew Short

It has been a long but nearly flawless 15 hours of traveling today, beginning with the 3:30 a.m. shuttle pick-up in Lawrence to clearing customs in Maracaibo, Venezuela, at 8:30 p.m. (quick fact: Venezuela has its own time zone, which is 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time). My colleagues from the Universidad del Zulia, Mauricio Garcia and Jesus Camacho, greeted me at the airport. We retired to Mauricio’s house to unwind and catch up for a couple of hours.

The immediate issue upon arrival that always splashes me in the face like a bucket of cold water is switching over exclusively to Spanish. Usually it takes me a week to get back up to a functional level. Having only been gone for 5 months, it shouldn’t take very long. On the plane there was some confusion over seat assignments, and I got some very strange looks when I was trying to sort it out. Later I realized that I had confused the words “sentarse” (to sit) and “sentirse” (to feel), and had essentially been saying something like “I think I’m supposed to feel there” and “I can feel where you were feeling.” The next few days of the trip will be devoted to some of the more mundane housekeeping and logistical issues, such as making and confirmation reservations, scouting a few local field sites before the full field crew assembles, and getting all our gear in order and packed in a semi-efficient manner. Of course, celebrating the New Year will be thrown in there as well. The main expedition does not start until next week, after my other US collaborators arrive.